MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Nikolai RAKOV (1908-1990)
Violin Sonata No.1 (1951) [21:50]
Violin Sonata No.2 (1974) [12:04]
Violin Sonatina No.2 (1965) [6:52]
Violin Sonatina No.3 Little Triptych (1968) [6:47]
Three Pieces for violin and piano (1943) [12:39]
David Frühwirth (violin)
Milana Chernyavska (piano)
rec. December 2009, German Radio Berlin, Studio Gärtnerstrasse
CRYSTAL CLASSICS N67075 [60:16]

Experience Classicsonline

Nikolai Rakov is little more than a name in reference sources, though much of his obscurity is due to his position in Russian music being eclipsed by such eminent contemporaries as Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Kabalevsky and their confreres. Rakov (1908-90) developed into a fine violinist and was later taught by Glière and Prokofiev. He displayed a very personal approach to his folkloric heritage, always subtly integrated and deployed. It’s not surprising that he was himself a fine teacher, and amongst his many students numbered Schnittke, Karen Khachaturian, Andrei Eshpai and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. His violin concerto has been recorded at least twice: Oistrakh and Hardy.
 
All the violin works in this adventurous disc are heard in premiere recordings. There are two sonatas, two Sonatinas and a set of three smaller pieces dating from 1943, the earliest in the set. It’s as well to start here, where one notices immediately the Prokofiev-like and very crisp Scherzino. The last of the three is a Poem, a very intense, indeed neurotically high-lying affair that suggests an obvious external agenda.
 
The first sonata followed in 1951 and sounds much different. There’s a fulsome romantic ethos at work here, not least in the piano writing. Incremental intensity builds in the central slow movement, whilst the finale revisits the glories of the late nineteenth century school with a kind of updated Franckian quality. The second sonata dates from 1974. This is a far more impressionistic affair with a Debussy ethos very much to the fore. In fact, to my ears, Rakov alludes to the Frenchman’s Violin Sonata quite markedly throughout the first movement, and it’s a work he must have played or at least known very well. The slow movement is slightly austere, the finale full of droll exchanges and badinage between violin and piano.
 
The two Sonatinas, Nos. 2 and 3 are brief, as their nomenclature suggests. The Second (1965) oscillates between relaxed and more moto perpetuo impulses, adds a slightly sardonic march, and ends up with unashamed brio, perhaps recalling Rakov’s own virtuoso-inclining youth. The Third Sonatina, or Little Triptych, of 1968 is a deceptively simple affair, charmingly suave, with a violin line that hints at Shostakovich at his most unselfconsciously communicative.
 
Rakov’s violin music is certainly worth reviving. He’s no stylistic jet-setter, preferring established models, which he subsumes into his writing with thoughtfulness and care. Folkloric influences here are not overt. The recordings do full justice to the works. David Frühwirth is one of those underrated violinists who is, nevertheless, carving out a fine career for himself: see reviews of his Trails of Creativity, Short Stories and Seiber discs. Milana Chernyavska is the excellent and imaginative pianist. The recording is quite close, so connoisseurs of violinistic intakes of breath (sniffing to thee and me) can have some further ammunition in this disc. It’s not so bad, and certainly doesn’t detract from the engaging performances.
 
Jonathan Woolf  

Information Received:

If I can just offer a correction to Jonathan Woolf's review of what sounds a most worthwhile disc of violin music by Nikolai Rakov: most of these pieces are not receiving their premiere recordings. The first sonata appeared on a Melodiya LP performed by David Oistrakh, and the two sonatinas on another performed by Eduard Grach, all with the composer at the piano. Oistrakh and Rakov also recorded a "Poem" which may or may not be one of the 1943 Three Pieces (I would try to check but a lot of my LPs are currently rather inaccessible!). All this info is on Onno van Rijen's Soviet music web pages.

All best
Rob Sykes

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file